Other Methods & Approaches
Design Thinking, Lean Startup, Stage-Gate, Venture Building: you probably know some of these already. Business Design uses many of their ideas, but it isn't the same thing. Here's what each approach does well, where it fits into Business Design and where Business Design goes further.
Bernhard Doll
Business Design Maverick
1. Business Design ≠ R&D
R&D (= research & development) is very often focused on technical feasibility studies to figure out whether a technology or material can be used in products, software systems etc. The aim is to learn about technical questions. We use elements of R&D when we explore new playgrounds, which can be driven by new technologies. R&D asks whether something can be built. It rarely asks whether anyone will pay for it – and that is where Business Design starts.
2. Business Design ≠ UI/UX
UI/UX deals with questions of how to build a certain product, service or software along so-called customer or user journeys. Within Business Design, UI/UX is a very valuable discipline when we implement and validate new ideas with customers and users, which usually happens in Phase IV of the End-to-End Innovation Process. UI/UX shapes how a product works for its users. Business Design first decides whether the product should exist at all, and how it makes money.
3. Business Design ≠ Design Thinking
Design Thinking has championed a discipline called "Human Factors" and made a very valuable contribution in the way we empathise with customers through qualitative research and observations. We use these elements heavily when we explore playgrounds and discover customers and users in Phase II. Design Thinking, however, doesn't care that much about the Organisational Context and business questions, which is why we have designed Business Design with a much broader scope.
4. Business Design ≠ Business Modelling
Thanks to the people behind "Business Model Generation", many of us have started thinking in Business Models, not only products, services, features etc. This was a great contribution to the world of management and strategy. Nevertheless, filling in the original Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas is only 1% of the effort needed to turn ideas into practice. We use a revised version of the Business Model Canvas in our projects as well.
5. Business Design ≠ Lean Startup
Business Design is based on the same idea of "agile" development and learning processes as many other approaches that have been out there for years, such as SCRUM, Extreme Programming or Lean Startup. Lean Startup has, in fact, propelled "agile" thinking to the business level, which has actually opened up the market for Business Design. Business Design, however, goes beyond the basic ideas of Lean Startup by structuring every single step necessary to build new businesses.
6. Business Design ≠ Stage-Gate
Stage-Gate was developed by Robert G. Cooper in the 1980s and is still the backbone of new product development in many corporates. Projects move through a fixed sequence of stages. At each gate, management decides whether to continue, based on a business case. Clear decision points are a good idea, and we use them ourselves: every sprint ends with a decision on whether to continue, pivot or stop. The difference is what that decision rests on. In Stage-Gate, the business case is usually written at the desk, and the gate judges a plan. In Business Design, the decision rests on evidence from experiments with real customers, and the gate judges what the team has learned. Stage-Gate works well when you already know the market. Business Design starts where you don't.
7. Business Design ≠ Design Sprint
The Design Sprint, made popular by Google Ventures and Jake Knapp's book Sprint (2016), compresses product thinking into five days: map the problem, sketch solutions, decide, build a prototype and test it with customers on day five. It's a sharp format for answering one well-defined question fast. Be careful with the word "sprint", though. Our sprints in Phase IV last 10 weeks, and that's on purpose. Five days are enough to find out whether users understand a prototype. They're not enough to find out whether a whole Business Model works: whether customers pay, whether the channels reach them and whether your organisation can deliver.
8. Business Design ≠ Venture Building
Venture builders and corporate venture studios promise the same result as Business Design: from idea to first revenue. Usually an external team builds the venture for you, often outside the parent company, with its own people and capital. That's fast, and for some ideas it's the right call. The price is that the capability leaves with the builders once the venture is done. Business Design builds new businesses with your own Project Teams, inside your Organisational Context, with clear Roles, Leadership and Governance. The venture may still end up as a separate company. The capability to build the next one stays with you.
9. Business Design ≠ Venture Clienting
Venture Clienting was made popular by the BMW Startup Garage. Instead of investing in a startup, the company buys the startup's product and becomes one of its first customers, usually to solve a concrete problem in an existing business unit. That's a smart way to bring new technology into the organisation fast, at a fraction of the cost and risk of an equity stake. The difference is the direction. Venture Clienting brings external solutions in to improve the business you already have. Business Design builds new businesses for new customers. The two fit together well: a startup you already work with as a venture client can become a key partner in a new Business Model.